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ExxonMobil Plans to Keep an Entire Generation on the Hook for Its Climate Destruction

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Original article by Allie Lindstrom republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods sits during testimony before the U.S House Committee on Oversight and Reform on October 28, 2021.  (Photo: Screenshot/C-SPAN)

Public pensions must exit Exxon to protect workers’ savings and retirement.

It is no secret that ExxonMobil poses some of the most powerful opposition to climate action at every level of government. Environmentalists have long pointed out that Exxon Knew about climate change, and instead of pivoting their business model to a more sustainable energy future, buried the evidence and began a decades-long disinformation campaign.

Leaders across the country have wisened up to the oil major’s dirty politics, which is why the House Oversight Committee has been investigating Exxon and its peers, and state attorneys general have sued the company for damages. Most recently, California AG Rob Bonta, alongside environmental organizations like the Sierra Club, sued the company for lying to the public about the recyclability of plastics.

If the tide is turning against Exxon, why haven’t investors caught on?

Unrestricted funding for companies engaged in fossil fuel expansion threatens workers’ right to dignified retirement safety, a right that unions have fought hard to win.

ExxonMobil sparked headlines and investor outrage this spring when the company sued its own shareholders over a climate-related shareholder resolution. Public pensions representing trillions in worker savings across the country pushed back and mounted a vote-no effort against CEO Darren Woods and Director Joseph Hooley, but Wall Street asset managers watered down their efforts instead offering unwavering support of Exxon.

To add insult to injury, Woods made an appearance at the Council of Institutional Investors—a nonprofit dedicated to advocating for the investor rights of public, union, and private employee benefit funds—in September. There, he promised to continue to crack down on “extreme” investors who are concerned that the company’s business model has loaded the economy with systemic financial risks and instability. Never mind that such a definition of extreme would describe many of the institutions present, which represent over 15 million workers and $5 trillion in assets under management.

But perhaps most indicative of ExxonMobil’s commitment to business-as-usual pollution is the bonds they’ve issued this fall, with a maturity date of 2074.

These long-dated bonds represent unrestricted funds for ExxonMobil to continue to pursue fossil fuel expansion and plastic pollution well past most of the world’s—and investors’—Net Zero by 2050 goals. This is an especially risky gamble for investors with long-term obligations, including public pension funds that manage millions of workers’ retirement savings.

Not only is the future of oil and gas uncertain, but prolonged pollution wrought by disinformation and investor cash increases economy-wide systemic risks. Investors—and the everyday people who rely on institutions to manage their savings—will be left holding the purse strings as climate change wreaks havoc. Moreover, bond ownership does not come with the shareholder rights investors hope to use to influence company behavior. This gives Exxon complete freedom to use the funds however it wishes, even if that’s out of alignment with investor interests.

This increasing risk is why we joined California Common Good and pension beneficiaries to testify during a recent CalPERS Board meeting to ask CalPERS to issue a moratorium on purchasing Exxon bonds.

The Sierra Club represents millions of members, many of whom are saving for retirement in the face of an uncertain future and working tirelessly to protect the communities and places they love. Whether relying on a public pension plan or a private asset manager, our members rely on investment professionals to keep their futures in mind. Unrestricted funding for companies engaged in fossil fuel expansion threatens workers’ right to dignified retirement safety, a right that unions have fought hard to win. That’s why we call on investors, particularly public pension funds, to refuse to participate in Exxon’s bond issuances.

Original article by Allie Lindstrom republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

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Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
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Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels. Second version, corrected text.
Continue ReadingExxonMobil Plans to Keep an Entire Generation on the Hook for Its Climate Destruction

We need a Revolution. What’s the plan?

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https://juststopoil.org/2024/03/03/we-need-a-revolution-whats-the-plan/

This system is fucked, politics is failing us, we need a revolution or we really do face rule by ‘the mob’. As we pass through 1.5C of heating to 2C and then the predicted 3C in the lifetime of many alive today, we will lose all we cherish and value. Our treasured landscapes, the rule of law, education, healthcare, pensions – and yes the people we love. We will not be able to feed ourselves and those who rule us do not care. Look at Gaza, this is what they are prepared to let happen. Genocide is now acceptable.

In response, nonviolent civil resistance to a harmful state will continue, with coordinated, radical actions that reach out to new people and capture the attention of the world. Alongside this, a new political project will be set up. This will run local assemblies and will support and stand candidates to shape the electoral debate. A coordinating structure known as Umbrella, will support these projects and this will be the heart of our community of resistance. 

Just Stop Oil will continue to be the major focus until we win, but we have a new three part demand: No New Oil, Revoke Tory Licences and Just Stop Oil by 2030. In addition to disrupting high-profile cultural events and continuing our Stop Tory Oil campaign, focussing on MP’s and those in power, this summer Just Stop Oil will commence a campaign of high-level actions at sites of key importance to the fossil fuel industry – airports.

In addition to Just Stop Oil, young people and students will be taking action in a new campaign that will demand an end to genocide – both in Palestine, and globally, from the continued drilling and burning of oil and gas.  

Umbrella will launch Assemble, a democracy project that will mobilise hundreds of people by running local assemblies on issues of concern to communities across the country and giving them pathways to action. The goal is to create a “People’s House” to parallel the House of Commons as the first step towards having permanent legally binding citizens assemblies- a democratic revolution.

Umbrella will be the hub for fundraising, mobilisation and directing resources to a range of new campaigns and groups, including Robin Hood, a major new campaign based around a demand to properly fund our public services by taxing the richest in society. 

Each of these campaigns will share the values of nonviolence and accountability.  

The system is fucked. You know it, everyone knows it. Don’t just sit around and watch everything collapse. Build what comes next: a revolution in politics, economics – our entire way of life.

It’s time to unfuck the system.

We are going for it. Join us.

https://juststopoil.org/2024/03/03/we-need-a-revolution-whats-the-plan/

Continue ReadingWe need a Revolution. What’s the plan?

Politics news allsorts

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Commentary and analysis on recent UK political events.

Following George Osborne’s Autumn statement there are warnings that the poor will be dead before they are able to retire.

Britain’s poor ‘will die before they retire’

…

Plans to raise the basic state pension age to 70 for people currently in their twenties were laid out in the George Osborne’s Autumn Statement this week. But with male life expectancy at birth as low as 66 in some of the most deprived parts of the country, public health experts have warned that a “one size fits all” pension age risks condemning many to a life without retirement.

…

The Mirror has an article on hypocritical Tories praising Mandela when years ago they opposed him, called him a terrorist and for him to be killed.

The ANC started bombing campaigns following the Sharpeville massacre which is regarded as a turning point in South African history.

[8/12/13 Mandela’s Paradoxes Made His Journey Even Greater

… [O]ur celebrity-focused culture virtually ignores the work of the rest of his colleagues during Mandela’s 27 years in prison (1963-1990) that ended Apartheid. The official media picture is as if a man went to jail and solely by example toppled an entrenched system of mandatory racial segregation. That’s not at all how it happened. The organizing – and, in particular, the evolution of it – by so many others remains one of the epic collective heroic stories of the twentieth century.

… Mandela’s absolutely unique evolution on questions of violence and nonviolence and their efficacy in struggle. Mandela began, by his own words, as an expressly Gandhian leader. “I followed the Gandhian strategy for as long as I could,” he later reflected, “but then there came a point in our struggle when the brute force of the oppressor could no longer be countered through passive resistance alone.” He then helped lead the military wing of the movement, received training in guerrilla warfare and sabotage in Algeria, and was arrested when back in his own country for that activity. He was kept in prison longer than his original five-year sentence precisely because he refused to renounce armed struggle, right up through his release in 1990.]

Nelson Mandela dead: Conservative ”hypocrites” heap praise on man they branded a terrorist

1990: ANC’s Heritage–Nonviolence to Guerrilla Attacks : Tactics: The anti-apartheid group is under pressure to negotiate. But many young members are impatient. 

 

Continue ReadingPolitics news allsorts